Highbridge, Bronx

Highbridge is a residential neighborhood geographically located in the central-west section of the Bronx, New York City. Its boundaries, starting from the north and moving clockwise are the Cross-Bronx Expressway to the north, Jerome Avenue to the east, East 161st Street to the south, and the Harlem River to the west. Ogden Avenue is the primary thoroughfare through Highbridge. ZIP codes include 10452.

Demographics

Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Highbridge was 37,727, an increase of 3,883 (11.5%) from the 33,844 counted in 2000. Covering an area of 373.14 acres (151.00 ha), the neighborhood had a population density of 101.1 inhabitants per acre (64,700/sq mi; 25,000/km2).[3]

Prior to the 1960s, Highbridge was a predominately Irish American neighborhood.[5] Today the vast majority of residents in the area are of Dominican, Puerto Rican and African American descent. Almost 40% of families live below the federal poverty line.[6] Highbridge has recently undergone rapid gentrification. In 2017, rents in Highbridge rose 22%, more than any other neighborhood in New York City.[7]

Land use and terrain

Highbridge is dominated by townhouses and 5 and 6-story apartment buildings, including numerous Art Deco landmarks built by the developer Bernard J. Noonan and the architects Horace Ginsberg and Marvin Fine.[8] Many older detached mansions still remain on Woodycrest Avenue and Ogden Avenue. The total land area is roughly one square mile. The terrain is elevated and very hilly. Stair streets connect areas located at different elevations.

Landmarks

The Woodycrest Children's Home on Woodycrest Avenue was built as an orphanage by the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless to rescue from degradation, physical and moral, the children of want, homelessness and sorrow.[9] This grand Beaux Arts building was designed by William Tuthill, the architect of Carnegie Hall.[9] Opening in 1902, it housed 120 children in five dormitories, and contained a chapel, a kindergarten, a hospital, a dining room and a quarantine ward for new arrivals.[9] The building is now managed by the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center as the Highbridge-Woodycrest center, providing long-term geriatric and AIDS care.[10]

The "Lighthouse" building at Sedgewick Avenue and University Avenue has housed the H.W. Wilson Company, an educational publisher and index services provider, since 1917. The building's distinctive lighthouse was added in 1929. The company merged with EBSCO Publishing in June 2011. [13]

History

At the time of European settlement, the southern Bronx was inhabited by the Siwanoy, a tribe of the Wappinger Confederacy. They called the hill that is now Highbridge "Nuasin," or "the land between," for its location between the Harlem River and an estuary that formerly flowed in the area of modern-day Jerome Avenue.[15]

In the mid-late 19th century, the area was developed as a suburban retreat for the elite, who built large homes overlooking the Harlem River. The names of these families and their estates are still reflected in the names of Highbridge's north-south avenues: Ogden Avenue and Boscobel Place for William B. Ogden,[15] Merriam Avenue for Francis W. Merriam,[15] Anderson Avenue and Woodycrest Avenue for the Anderson family, and Shakespeare Avenue for the Shakespeare Garden on the Marcher family estate.[25] Around the turn of the 20th Century, many of these estates were subdivided for urban development, however a few older houses still remain.[15]

In the late 1960s, the residents of Highbridge were predominantly of Irish, Italian and Eastern European Jewish descent. They have since been replaced by large numbers of Hispanics and African Americans.[5] As of 2017, the neighborhood is undergoing gentrification.[7]

^"William B. Ogden.", Illinois During the Gilded Age. Accessed June 12, 2017. "His business causing him, of late years, to spend much of his time in New York, he purchased a handsome villa, in the spring of 1866, in Westchester County, at Fordham Heights, adjoining the High Bridge."

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